Invent ~ 25!

Curling into a ball in a vain attempt to impact his attacker’s aim, Joe slammed into the wall and fell to the grounds as a dizzying array of projectiles were launched at him.

Fire, ice, pressurized air, arrows, bolts, bullets, throwing knives… whatever someone had, they used it against him. If Joe were a fan of psychology, he would have cursed them all with the knowledge that they were taking out their inadequacies and failure on him in various fits of rage. Yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to speak as his defenses were blown away and the terrain around him was turned into a cratered mess.

“You think we didn’t know that you were arrogant?” Herr Trigger bellowed over the howling of dozens of spells being tossed out. “That you would come after us to prove your superiority? This is our tunnel now! We will use this as a staging ground to turn your little town into-”

A klaxon call answered him, an alarm in such close proximity that at least a half dozen spells were interrupted and backfired as people slapped their hands over their ears. Herr Trigger bellowed at Joe over the outpouring of noise and friendly fire as he tried to push through the crowd toward him. “What did you do? Another of your little barriers and alarms?”

Joe had been pinned to the wall by an oversized bolt through his gut, and blood poured from his mouth as he chuckled at the assassin. “You… *ptooey*… you’re right. I thought I’d only find you. You got me. But if I’m going down… *hack*… I’m taking all of you with me.”

His hand dropped down from the wall, leaving a smear of blood pointing to a glowing ritual diagram. The alarm was sounding from this location, so loudly that it was vibrating the air. One of Joe’s attackers had a realization and turned to run, screeching, “That’s the same alarm that went off just before those tunnels were flooded with lava and collapsed! He’s trying to kill us all!”

“Run for it!”

The second person to move started a panic by shoving an archer into the wall as he barreled past. “Get out of my way! I just hit level twenty-three! I’m not going to lose two levels over this!”

That was all it took to create a full-blown evacuation attempt. Herr Trigger, being in the middle of the mass of people, was being swept away in the tide. “No! No! Someone at least finish him off! Do you have any idea how long it takes me to enchant every individual bullet? I’ve spent days on what you just wasted! Make it worth it! Kill him! Kill-!”

Any more was lost as the packed tunnel was vacated, a howling assassin trying to push against the much stronger warriors that were shoving him along in their escape attempt. As the last of them vanished in their mad escape attempt, Joe managed to fight through the weakness that massive blood loss had induced, calling up his mana and sending Lay on Hands into his thoracic cavity directly, restoring three hundred and seventy-eight health: a mere drop in the bucket.

Exquisite Shell: 0/9,299

Health: 599/1,864. Organs pierced! -23 health per second.

“Eleven thousand damage in two seconds… and most of them missed.” Joe coughed up and spat out a thick wad of phlegm and blood. “Ugh… a stiff breeze would have killed me. Thank the celestials that people wanted to survive more than they wanted to take me down.”

He looked over at the Novice Ritual of Alarm that he had needed to manually activate. The alarm that somehow no one had gotten close enough to set off, and wasn’t connected to anything whatsoever. It was just noise. “I need to get the abyss out of here.”

Luck +2! Great bluffs can lead to huge paydays!

Joe looked at the bolt that was still holding him in place, trying to figure out the best way to remove it from himself. “I really need to start carrying around a knife of some kind so I can cut my way out of situations like this.”

He swept his awareness over his weapons, pleased to see that his icicle Ritual Orb had appeared in his weapon bandolier at some point without him noticing. Even so, he was going to need to do this the hard way. He gripped the bolt and tried to break it off, only to find that the entire shaft was some kind of metal. “Well… that just makes too much sense for this world.”

A check of the fletching showed him that this was going to hurt. He couldn’t get the bolt itself out of the wall, so he needed to pass over the solid metal fletching and tear his way out.

Damage taken: 68 secondary!

Joe groaned and poked his organs back into place as best he could, then started alternating casts of Mend and Lay on Hands. As his health approached maximum, he prepared to get his Exquisite Shell into place… but a strange sound reached his ears even through the klaxon call of his ritual that was blasting out his senses. “That means it’s not my standard senses? Something… magical!”

He vaulted forward in a roll, a huge—clearly enchanted—sword slamming into where he had been a mere moment ago. It cut right through his right leg, taking his foot off just above the ankle. Joe’s scream couldn’t be heard through the siren, but he made a valiant attempt. As he landed, he looked back and found a huge warrior staring at him with bloodshot eyes. “Fecal matter, they must have got through the barrier. This is why you never leave enemies behind you, Joe!”

Damage taken: 100 slicing. Right leg crippled! Fully heal or reattach limb to regain use of [Right foot].

The warrior’s mouth was moving, and he clearly expected that Joe was able to hear him. He had launched into a grand, impressive monologue, but all it did was give the Reductionist enough time to tie off his open wound, stop the bleeding, and respond with a Dark Lightning Strike. The man swept his sword up and through the spell, his sword flashing brightly as the strike was dispersed. Then the man rocketed toward Joe, moving so quickly that he left an afterimage; a subtle reminder to Joe that he needed to increase his perception.

Joe vaulted straight up; his form wobbly as he was only able to put weight on one leg. As the ceiling neared, the blade sliced into his stump; taking another few inches of that leg. Even though the pain made him want to scream, the sound that came out was mostly fury.

He had lost the use of his limbs before. It had changed how he experienced life in so many ways, and driven him to do objectively terrible things—like leaving his body behind for another chance. It hadn’t occurred to him how deeply that impacted the things he did even now, how it would make him react in situations like this where someone was actively taking cross-sectioned circle steaks off of him.

Joe’s icicle Ritual Orb left his belt and pointed down at the man below, starting to spin in place as the Reductionist himself pushed off the stone ceiling and started falling at an angle. He specifically hadn’t jumped—and the warrior was waiting for him, pulling his sword to the side like he was about to hit a home run, and Joe was the slow-moving baseball.

Since his eyes were on Joe, the man’s throat was exposed. Just before the Reductionist fell into perfect range, his Ritual Orb raced past him and blended into the unarmored space just below his Adam's Apple. The piercing weapon kept traveling until it hit armor that it couldn’t move through. The fighter dropped to the ground and grasped at his neck, feeling his lungs rapidly filling with blood.

Damage dealt: 178 piercing cold. Critical! Massive internal bleeding damage. -89 health per second.

Joe grabbed his fallen foot, taking a moment to try and put it in the right spot. His healing didn’t work, and he realized there was another fleshy frisbee off to the side. Holding both of those in place, Lay on Hands managed to bring Joe back to pristine condition. Then he looked at the warrior, a man that clearly had no way to heal the huge hole that had literally been drilled through his neck. He also had so much health that he likely would be suffering for a long time before going down.

That wasn’t okay with Joe. Not even slightly.

Even so, he took the time he needed to get Exquisite Shell back in place before approaching the man. Joe moved with slow motions so that the warrior didn’t lash out, then, with a single sharp order, pulled his Ritual Orb out of the man via his willpower. There was a flash of blood in the air, then Joe grabbed the man’s neck with both hands, pumping him full of healing water using Lay on Hands.

At that moment, the klaxon ended, even though it almost seemed to be continuing to ring in their ears. A new voice came at that moment, and Joe’s head whipped to the side. “What in the blazes did you do to him? You don’t have that kind of grip strength, how are you choking him so hard that the skin bursts?”

Joe looked over to see Havoc carrying a slumped mage, then down at his own position. His pure white Silkpants Mage’s set was soaked in blood, and he was holding a barely-breathing warrior’s neck as if he were trying to knock him out. The Reductionist let go and stepped back; the warrior crashing to the ground gasping for air, shuddering in horror, and coughing out wave after wave of blood. Knowing this wasn’t the right time for it, Joe still went with a joke. “What can I say? He talked too much.”

“Remind me to keep quiet around you when you’re in a mood then.” Havoc muttered as he tossed the mage down next to the warrior. “Whaddaya want to do with them, then?”

“There’s no point in killing or keeping them. They might be worth some reputation, but why?” All Joe could do was shrug, then he leaned down to talk to the warrior. “Hey. Listen. There are better things to do. Better ways to spend your time. Just leave us alone, man.”

“I will never come back here.” The warrior rasped at him with terror in his eyes as he nodded his head and pawed at his unmarked throat. “I owe you one.”

Joe shrugged noncommittally, healed the mage just to make sure he would wake up after whatever Havoc had likely done to him, then turned to the Dwarf. “Are you late, or right on time?”

“Quiet down and give me the cores you owe me.” Havoc snorted in reply as they turned and walked back toward their settlement. “Also, I found that atrocity you’ve been performing terrible deeds on. The… I’ll generously call it a ‘table’? After seeing that, I realized that it’s likely past time that the two of us did some hands-on training together.”